The Despair of a Faithful Man Text: Numbers 11:10-15
Introduction: The Weight of Leadership
The Bible is a remarkably honest book. It does not give us airbrushed saints or leaders who never falter. It gives us men of God, in the dirt and the heat, often at the end of their rope. And there are few places where we see a faithful man more frayed, more utterly spent, than in this raw and desperate prayer of Moses.
We live in an age that idolizes leadership, but we have a very thin, plastic view of what it entails. We want leaders who are always inspiring, always composed, always "on." We want the highlight reel. But real leadership, especially spiritual leadership, is heavy. It is a burden. And there are moments when that burden feels absolutely crushing. This is true for a pastor, for a father in his home, for a mother with her children, for anyone who has taken up the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility.
The scene here is one of mass discontent. The spirit of complaint is a contagion, and it has swept through the camp of Israel. It is a whining pandemic. And Moses, the man of God, is standing right in the middle of it, caught between a holy, angry God and a weeping, petulant people. What we have here is the anatomy of a breakdown. It is a man pushed past his limits. But it is also a profound lesson in the nature of our weakness and the all-sufficiency of God's grace. God is not afraid of our honesty. He can handle our complaints, even when they are laced with sin and self-pity. In fact, it is often when we are brought to this point of utter bankruptcy that God is most ready to work.
The Text
Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of Yahweh was kindled greatly, and it was evil in the sight of Moses. So Moses said to Yahweh, “Why have You allowed this evil toward Your slave? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all this people on me? Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who gave birth to them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing baby, to the land which You swore to their fathers’? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat that we may eat!’ I alone am not able to carry all this people because it is too heavy for me. So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness.”
(Numbers 11:10-15 LSB)
The Sound of Sin (v. 10)
We begin with the atmosphere in the camp.
"Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of Yahweh was kindled greatly, and it was evil in the sight of Moses." (Numbers 11:10)
Notice the pervasiveness of this sin. It is not a few malcontents grumbling in a corner. They are weeping "throughout their families." It is a coordinated, public display of misery. Each man is at the doorway of his tent, making sure his complaint is seen and heard. This is performative victimhood on a national scale. They had just been complaining about the manna, and now their lust has fixated on meat. This kind of weeping is not godly sorrow; it is the tantrum of a spoiled child who has mistaken God's provision for a prison menu.
And God is not fooled. His anger is "kindled greatly." This is a righteous and holy wrath. God hates grumbling. It is a direct assault on His character, His goodness, and His wisdom. To complain about your circumstances is to file a formal charge against the God who ordained them. The apostle Paul warns us against this very sin, reminding us not to "grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer" (1 Cor. 10:10).
But notice also that this public display was "evil in the sight of Moses." Moses is not on the people's side. He sees their sin for what it is. He is the mediator, standing in the gap, and he is displeased with both sides. He is vexed by the people's sin and terrified by God's righteous anger. He is caught in the crossfire, and the pressure is immense.
The Accusation Against God (v. 11-13)
Moses turns to God, but his prayer is more of an arraignment.
"Why have You allowed this evil toward Your slave? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all this people on me? Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who gave birth to them... Where am I to get meat to give to all this people?" (Numbers 11:11-13)
This is the prayer of a man whose vision has collapsed down to himself. Count the first-person pronouns: "Your slave... I... my sight... me... I... I..." Moses feels personally victimized by God. "Why have You done this to me?" He interprets the burden of leadership not as a calling, but as a sign of God's disfavor. He has forgotten that the burning bush was a commission, not a curse.
He then employs a fascinating and telling metaphor. "Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who gave birth to them, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing baby...'" Moses is rejecting the role of a mother. He is saying, "This is Your baby, God, not mine. I didn't give birth to this screaming infant of a nation. Why are you making me the wet nurse?" He sees the pastoral care required as an unnatural burden. He feels the demand to nurture, feed, and carry this people, and he recoils from it.
Then he gets to the practical impossibility: "Where am I to get meat?" The weeping of the people has gotten into his head. He has started to think like them. He is looking at his own empty hands, his own limited resources, instead of looking to the God who parted the Red Sea and brought bread from heaven. When a leader internalizes the complaints of the people, he adopts their faithlessness. He has forgotten God's own question from just a few verses later: "Is the LORD's hand shortened?" (Num. 11:23).
The Cry of Inadequacy (v. 14-15)
Finally, Moses reaches his breaking point.
"I alone am not able to carry all this people because it is too heavy for me. So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness." (Numbers 11:14-15)
Here, in the depths of his despair, Moses speaks the absolute truth. "I alone am not able." Of course he is not. No man is. This is the central lesson of godly leadership. The burden is always too heavy for us. The moment we begin to think, "I've got this," is the moment we are closest to a fall. God brings his servants to the end of their own strength precisely so that they will learn to rely on His.
The problem is not the burden. The problem is the word "I." Moses is trying to carry the weight of a nation on his own shoulders, and it is crushing him. His solution is the cry of the utterly defeated: "Kill me now." Like Elijah under the juniper tree, he would rather die than continue in what he perceives to be a miserable failure. He asks for death as a sign of God's "favor." It is a twisted, desperate plea. "God, if you love me at all, put me out of my misery. Don't make me watch myself fail." He cannot bear the sight of his own "wretchedness."
And how does God respond to this bitter, faithless, self-pitying, yet brutally honest prayer? He does not rebuke him. He does not strike him down. He answers him. God's shoulders are broad enough to handle our honest despair. He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. And so, in His grace, He provides a solution. He will take the Spirit that is on Moses and distribute it among seventy elders, so that Moses will no longer have to bear the burden alone.
The Greater Moses
This entire episode is a stark and vivid picture of our need for a better mediator, a greater leader than Moses. It points us forward to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Moses says, "I alone am not able to carry all this people." But Jesus says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you... for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30). Jesus is able to carry us all.
Moses recoils from the role of a nurturing mother, saying "Did I give birth to them?" But Jesus is the Good Shepherd who gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them in His bosom (Isaiah 40:11). He does not resent our neediness; He invites it.
Moses, under the weight of his people's sin, asks for death as an escape. Jesus, under the weight of His people's sin, willingly went to death as a sacrifice. Moses wanted to be spared the sight of his wretchedness. Christ became wretchedness for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).
The solution for Moses's loneliness was a delegation of the Spirit to seventy others. But the solution for us is far greater. On the day of Pentecost, the greater Moses poured out His Spirit not on seventy elders, but on the entire church. The burden of ministry is now shared by the whole body of Christ, each member equipped by the same Spirit. We are not meant to carry the burden alone.
This passage is therefore a great comfort to all who feel the weight of their calling. It is a comfort to fathers and mothers, to pastors and elders. The burden is too heavy for you. That is by divine design. You are supposed to come to the end of yourself. You are supposed to cry out in your inadequacy. For it is there, at the end of your rope, that you find that the arms of the greater Moses are strong enough to carry both you and your burden. Cast your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.